I had to hold off on this blog for a little while as I awaited feedback and had all my risk assessments and ethics documentation signed off. This has finally happened and I am now into the research phase of my project. This means that a number of things are now set in stone and this includes:

The Research Questions

The main question that my project intends to answer is from a Critical Race Theory perspective, what role if any, Black Twitter plays in the construction and performance of identity and representation among Black London-based non-African American Twitter user?

I am specifically interested in finding out the following

How do the research participants define Black Twitter?

How do the research participants engage (if at all) with Black Twitter?

In what other ways do the research participants perform and construct their identity on Twitter

The research process

I will be conducting face-to-face interviews with 30 or so individuals between now and 11th July 2014. I will also be undertaking a digital ethnographical study of participant tweets and twitter biographies.

The participants

I am interested in working with individuals who meet all of the following criteria

Self-identify as Black in accordance with the classification provided by the UK 2011 Census. This classification includes those who self-identify as “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British or Any other Black/African/Caribbean background” (ONS, 2011).

Research will study participants who would select Census 2011 Q.16 Option D

Reside in one of the 33 Boroughs of London

Have a personal Twitter account registered on or before 1st May 2013

Maintain an active presence of twitter as evidenced by volume of tweets/recent tweets

I am very excited about this stage and I can’t wait to start learning more about race, Twitter and identity. If you are interested in taking part and/or know anyone who would be interested in taking part then please either leave a comment below (be sure include your email) or drop me an email.

Intersectionality is described by dominant culture as the location where all of our multiple identities intersect. However, my identities are not straight lines, which only intersect in one place. For me, intersectionality is more like living in multiple worlds at once.

Intersectionality is like a woven basket. Pieces of me are woven together holding my experiences in the world, my soul. This basket holds the essence of me, but is something that others cannot see. How can someone understand the intricacies of being a Mestiza, Disabled, poor, woman, mystic shape-shifter, who was born and has lived in the borderlands? I, who exist inside this woven basket, am always on the continuing journey to understand each piece and what it means when they are fit together.

The reason it is revolutionary and empowering to see selfies of beautiful Black women is because proper representation of people who look like me is nowhere near the point of over saturation. The internet is the only place where I can see women who look like me freely. I don’t have to wait for the bevy of white magazines to have pity on me and show me a white washed version of myself in print. Social media allows for people of color, queer folks, fats, femmes, trans* folks, and differently-abled folks to find proper representation of ourselves sans gatekeepers. Sites like IG/tumblr democratizes beauty and makes it accessible to us.

The most significant take-away from our research is that there are significant demographic differences in concerns about young people. Some of the differences are not particularly surprising. For example, parents of children who have been exposed to pornography or violent content, or who have bullied or been bullied, have greater concern that this will happen to their child. Yet, other factors may be more surprising. For example, we found significant racial and ethnic differences in how parents approach these topics. Black, Hispanic, and Asian parents are much more concerned about at least some of the online safety measures than Whites, even when controlling for socioeconomic factors and previous experiences.

While differences in cultural experiences may help explain some of these findings, our results raise serious questions as to the underlying processes and reasons for these discrepancies. Are these parents more concerned because they have a higher level of distrust for technology? Because they feel as though there are fewer societal protections for their children? Because they feel less empowered as parents? We don’t know. Still, our findings challenge policy-makers to think about the diversity of perspectives their law-making should address. And when they enact laws, they should be attentive to how those interventions are received. Just because parents of colour are more concerned does not mean that an intervention intended to empower them will do so. Like many other research projects, this study results in as many — if not more — questions than it answers.

There are currently 18,550 professors in the UK, 2.5 million UK national and non UK students, of the 165 Universities in the UK the 24 that make up The Russell Group account for one fifth of the student population, around 550,000, there are 121,000 Black students in the UK, that’s around 5.9% (UK national 4.7%), 1 in 14 professors are from BME backgrounds, 36% of black academic staff are on temporary contracts, compared to 26% of white staff, the Russell Group should have around 25,000 black students, if they were being true to the ethnic make up of the country. They have around 11,000 instead – and the most potent result from the data I gathered for my research and film – only 85 Black professors exist in the UK, that’s 0.4%. Of the 85 Black professors in this country, only 17 are Black women, a situation that highlights the way gender and race collide within academia.

With a UK population of 3.3% it is clear that black Britons are faced with a very problematic situation, there is an overrepresentation of black students and a massive under representation of Black professors. These students end up overwhelmingly as recipients and not participants of knowledge creation in this country.

It started with a tweet. On Sunday evening, medical student Warsan Ismail began to list a series of everyday examples of racism she and her family have experienced in Norway. She began with the story of how, when she was just five, her neighbours set a pair of dogs after her mother. In 140 characters, she continued with anecdote after anecdote – each one tagged with the hashtag #norskrasisme, or “Norwegian racism”.

Within minutes, many others tweeted similar stories. By the end of the evening, it was one of the top trending terms on Twitter in Norway. Ismail was soon interviewed by major newspapers and on Norwegian TV. To date, there have been more than 6,000 tweets using the hashtag – and it’s still on the up.

I’ve received a lot racist comments on Twitter. People say I’m too dark to be a singer and there have been lots of references to how dark my skin is. People say, “You’re black and ugly.” And nasty things like that. The sad thing is that most of them are made by black people who just have lighter skin than me.

A few days ago I put together a list of peer-reviewed papers on Black Twitter and to complement that list here are some non-peer reviewed sources that have made it on to my reading list. I should make it clear that for the moment all I have done is group them by year (starting with the earliest mention that I can find and link back to). I have not attempted to analyse or critique any of these sources. I have also not included the 2013 mentions because there are quite a few and I haven’t finished cataloging the 2013 sources. But, even in relation to the years listed below – I make no claim as to the completeness of this list and I would gladly welcome any additions.

Notes: I recently posted this on my personal blog but now that I moving this blog beyond a collection of links and into the realm of critique and commentary, I thought I would cross-post it here as it touches on the performance of blackness in the virtual world – a subject that is central to my proposed dissertation topic:

“new racism that entails individuals saying and doing things that perpetuate racial stereotypes and inequalities, but they do so in such a way that the offender is able to deny being explicitly racist.”

The definition emphasises the privilege of deniability that coded racism bestows on the offender, however it does not fully articulate the impact coded-racism has on the “victim” of racism. The ambiguity present in coded-racism that allows an offender to deny their wrong doing is the same ambiguity that makes it difficult for those on the receiving end to actually call out well-disguised racism. Feeling uncertain about whether something/someone is racist, or if someone is using code words, and if so how to address it, is an uncomfortable and lonely place to be. Yet that is exactly where I find myself every time I watch another Thug Notes video.

Thug Notes Trailer

On the surface of it, the premise of the channel and its videos is very simple. Each video features, a male African American literary scholar, Sweet Sparky, PhD who provides a summary and analysis of a popular English literature text; a York Notes (or Cliff Notes for those across the pond) for the digital age. However just like any classic work of literature one cannot ignore Thug Note’s subtext; and it is this subtext that I suspect is the cause of my unease.

Despite Sweet Sparky being the only person you see and hear in each video, Napkin Note Productions, a company that aims to create films that “tickle your brain and warm your heart”, are responsible for Thug Notes. Sweet Sparky is played by actor-turned-comedian Greg Edwards who is supported behind the scenes by a crew that includes Napkin Note founder Jared Bauer (credited as Show Creator, Writer and Executive Producer). The rationale for the project is that, “if education was funny, more kids would want to learn.” Through this project Napkin Note want to “deliver intelligent summary and analysis of classical literature” and “… to spread the gospel of literature.” Clearly a significant amount of thought has gone into the creation and execution of this project and while not wanting to take anything away from this, I’m still left with some lingering questions regarding Thug Notes.

For instance were the creators aware of the on-going debate surrounding the use of the word Thug as a racially coded-word? Whilst I am not 100% certain that “Thug” is the new N Word and thus should be considered off-limits; I am of the opinion that some words cannot be understood without exploring their contextual basis. In trying to establish context within Thug Notes, both as a project and as a YouTube channel, I was immediately drawn to its tagline; “Classic Literature, Original Gangster”. The phrase “Original Gangster” often abbreviated to ‘OG’ has its roots in late ‘80s, early 90s Hip-Hop. Thus my inference is that Thug Notes use of the word “thug” is in some way related to hip-hop’s use of the word; a word that the late rapper Tupac Shakur passionately defined as:

When I say ‘Thug Life,’ I mean that shit. Cause these white folks see us as thugs. I don’t care what y’all think I don’t care if you think you a lawyer, if you a man, if you an ‘African-American’. If you whatever the f*ck you think you are. We thugs and n*gg@s to these motherf*ckers… (Transcript via Political BlindSpot)

I think one of the reasons I am uncomfortable with “thug” in the context of Thug Notes and its tagline is that one could very easily replace “lawyer” in Tupac’s statement with “English literary scholar” and the meaning of Tupac’s explanation would remain the same. At the very least, what is apparent to me is that there is a degree of racist stereotyping that I am certainly not at ease with and none of this is made better by the visuals that accompany Thug Notes.

Sweet Sparky addresses his viewers from what may just as well be Jane Austen’s reading room. Hardback books fill the shelves behind his period drama style armchair, a decanter of some brown, presumably alcoholic, liquid rests on the side table to his right; and then there is the man himself. More specifically his clothing; a do-rag on his head; an oversize gold chain hanging from his neck, a sleeveless shirt exposing muscular arms, and bare-legs sitting in lace-less high-top shoes. Irrespective of the creators’ intention the visual presented by Thug Notes creates a juxtaposition that perpetuates racist stereotyping i.e. the modern day black brute in an environment that one does not expect to find him in. It relies on long-standing falsehoods that have positioned black people as intellectually inferior; forgoing the library in order to live the gangster life. If this is supposed to elicit some sort of “oh, that’s clever!” reaction from the viewer; it had the opposite effect on me. I wasn’t pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t surprised. I felt the same old “hmm…I don’t know…” feeling that so often accompanies instances of coded-racism.

As if Sweet Sparky’s appearance is not enough, how he speaks is designed to reinforce his status as an Original Gangster. Sentences are punctuated with ‘Na’mean?’ (You know what I mean?), and the occasional ‘bitch’ is thrown in for good measure. If I were being generous I would say Thug Notes is Rap Genius’ distant cousin; in that Rap-Genius interprets rap music in to English literature style “prose” and Thug Notes interprets English literature into rap style speak. In this limited definition both do an excellent job. The meaning is not lost and there is knowledge to be gained. However, I cannot watch Thug Notes without being reminded of the example bell hooks gave in her book, ‘We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity‘ of a

“middle-class black who had never spoken broken English or a black patois was being forced to assume a “ghetto rap” that signified to his co-workers that he was really black.”

I don’t know Sweet Sparky’s back story but what I do know is that the Napkin Note team decided that best way to make learning funny was through the performance of blackness that relies on stereotypes of black male intellect and masculinity. Thug Notes explicit purpose may be beneficial and Napkin Notes ‘explicit intentions may be benign and from a social media numbers game perspective, with over 130,600 YouTube subscribers, 10,000 Facebook fans and 3,900+ Twitter followers, it is a success. However, for me, I still cannot shake away that feeling of unease and discomfort that I get whenever I find myself confronted with coded-racism.

New Media and Society‘s latest release is a special release focusing on the Rise of Internet Studies. Of particular interest to to anyone researching race and the internet is Jessie Daniel‘s article, Race and racism in Internet Studies: A review and critique.

Abstract:

Race and racism persist online in ways that are both new and unique to the Internet, alongside vestiges of centuries-old forms that reverberate significantly both offline and on. As we mark 15 years into the field of Internet studies, it becomes necessary to assess what the extant research tells us about race and racism. This paper provides an analysis of the literature on race and racism in Internet studies in the broad areas of (1) race and the structure of the Internet, (2) race and racism matters in what we do online, and (3) race, social control and Internet law. Then, drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives, including Hall’s spectacle of the Other and DuBois’s view of white culture, the paper offers an analysis and critique of the field, in particular the use of racial formation theory. Finally, the paper points to the need for a critical understanding of whiteness in Internet studies.

This special issue poses the questions: to what degree are race and technology intertwined? Can race be considered a technology or a form of media—that is, not only a mechanism, but also a practical or industrial art? Could race be not simply an object of representation and portrayal, of knowledge or truth, but also a technique that one uses, even as one is used by it—a carefully crafted, historically inflected system of tools, mediation, or enframing that builds history and identity?

“…[that] last between 30 and 32 seconds and feature an excerpt from the song “Harlem Shake” by electronic musician Baauer. Usually, a video begins with one person (often helmeted or masked) dancing to the song alone for 15 seconds, surrounded by other people not paying attention or unaware of the dancing individual. When the bass drops, the video cuts to the entire crowd doing a crazy convulsive dance for the next 15 seconds.” (Source: Wikipedia)

According to the WSJ, you should either be “A) currently obsessed with, B) sheepishly late to or C) already sick of” the Harlem Shake. This is based on the WSJ’s “tracking its evolution over three weeks.” But the Harlem Shake did not start three weeks ago. The original Harlem Shake dance

“…called the albee, is a dance introduced in 1981 by a Harlem resident named “Al B”. The dance was initially referred to as “albee” after his name, but later became known as the Harlem shake as its prominence grew beyond the neighborhood. The dance became mainstream in 2001 when G. Dep featured the Harlem shake in his music video “Let’s Get It”. ” (Source: Wikipedia)

A series of interviews with Harlem residents by Shlepp Films, presents an alternative view of this meme.

Maybe the WSJ needs to add another reaction to the Harlem Shake Meme and that is; some of us are reading it as an opportunity to question the interaction between technology, participation, representation and innovation.

[Critics of the Harlem Shake meme] are right to acknowledge the sordid history of cultural products being seized from, and mass-produced at the expense of, such neighborhoods as Harlem. However, their reaction begs the glaring question of whether the new age Internet lives by their rules of race and cultural categories. The answer to that question is simply no. The Internet produces and will continue to birth cultural phenomena, such as the Harlem Shake meme, that blur the lines of race and culture. (Source: The Grio)